Thursday meeting to detail CSU on-campus stadium plan, possible sites

Mar. 28, 2012

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The CSU and Fort Collins communities will learn more details Thursday evening about the university’s plans to build an on-campus football stadium in Fort Collins, including potential sites.

The university’s Stadium Advisory Committee meets at 7 p.m. to hear from its various subcommittees that have been investigating specific topic areas regarding a potential stadium, including financing, siting and design. One of the most hotly anticipated portions of the meeting will come when a subcommittee reports on potential sites for what Athletic Director Jack Graham has envisioned as an approximately 45,000-seat stadium funded by private donations, naming rights, and, university officials said on Tuesday, potentially seat licenses, suite sales and a new ticket surcharge.

“You’re going to have some specificity that’s going to sustain an actual debate,” said Colorado State University President Tony Frank of the information that will be presented at the meeting.

Frank already has set out a series of restrictions on where he doesn’t want to see a stadium sited, and members of the stadium siting subcommittee took those into account. Members also went through a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey exercise in which they placed cardboard stadium footprint cutouts on a campus map that had been marked up with Frank’s limitations and other restrictions.

They also considered the cost of replacing buildings that might have to be torn down — depending on where the potential stadium was sited — and discussed topics ranging from the university’s growth rate to parking and transportation. At Thursday’s meeting, the siting committee is expected to offer up multiple potential stadium locations.

“Given President Tony Frank’s rules, and the physical realities of the campus, the site selection committee will set out some areas of potential sites,” CSU spokesman Mike Hooker said Tuesday. “The report from the subcommittee is going to show what potential sites look like.”

From the committee

CSU student-body President Eric Berlinberg, who serves on the advisory committee, said he’s been impressed with how much information has been presented and discussed by committee members. Berlinberg serves on the siting subcommittee but also has attended meetings of the other subcommittees investigating financing, design and public input.

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“I think the information is going to be very interesting to people,” Berlinberg said. “A lot of the questions are going to begin to be answered.”

Berlinberg said he played with the siting map, considering issues ranging from the replacement cost of buildings to the impact of the federally regulated railroad tracks along the Mason Street corridor. He said there are several potential stadium sites identified by the committee that meet Frank’s requirements but declined to discuss specifics in advance of the meeting.

Deputy Fort Collins City Manager Diane Jones, who also sits on the siting subcommittee, has declined to discuss potential sites. Last week, she told members of an anti-stadium group that she wanted to respect the subcommittee’s private work. She said that, while a “no-build” option isn’t being formally considered, that’s definitely something the subcommittee is keeping in mind.

Frank, in late December, appointed an advisory committee to investigate whether CSU should build an on-campus football stadium and whether the university could do it. Frank wants to have a formal recommendation from the committee by the end of the spring semester in May.

Jones told the anti-stadium group, “Save Our Stadium, Hughes,” that environmental and traffic impacts should be discussed during the siting process.

“There’s a whole raft of things that you have to consider, I think,” said Jones, who represents the city’s interests on the advisory committee. “From my perspective, those questions need to be asked, and need to be answered.”

Because it is an arm of the state government, CSU does not have to follow the same process that other developments within the city must follow. However, Frank voluntarily committed the university to an open and transparent process for discussing the stadium leading up to his decision. Subcommittee meetings are closed to the public, but their reports will be published.

Jones said the subcommittee discussed a variety of “constraints” in siting the stadium on campus but never discussed one limitation that Graham had offered: that any stadium should be built 400 to 500 yards from CSU’s historic Oval. In fact, Frank said Graham was simply speaking in conceptual or general terms when he offered that guideline earlier this month.

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Critics seek more specifics

Stadium critics say the disconnect between what Graham said regarding the 500-yard limit, and Frank’s subsequent dismissal of it as merely “illustrative” is but one example of how they’ve struggled to get information about the project and the process.

SOSH leader Bob Vangermeersch said while CSU is talking publicly about being open and transparent, university officials have been reluctant to provide information in response to open-records requests, including details such as new football coach Jim McElwain’s as-yet-unsigned contract and the contract between Graham and the search firm he used to help him hire McElwain.

Vangermeersch has repeatedly made the point that Graham and Frank are forging ahead without any sort of specific plan, something he said would never fly in the world of private business. He likened CSU’s decision to hire a stadium design firm before even deciding to build a stadium to driving an old car to a car dealership and asking the salesmen if it needs replacing.

“What do you think they’re going to say?” Vangermeersch said.

Hooker on Tuesday said CSU is initially paying Denver-based ICON Venue Group $25,000 to help with stadium design, siting and the public input process. He said that money is coming from private donors contacted by Graham. ICON’s management team will be at Thursday night’s meeting.